Door Viewer

This application is related to U.S. Pat. No. 4,892,399 to Ahn.

The present invention relates to a door viewer mounted in a door, and more particularly to a door viewer through which one can see visitors in front of the door.

Various types of optical devices have been proposed. For example, as shown in FIG. 3A, U.S. Pat. No. 4,082,434 discloses a wide-angle optical system for a door viewer comprising a concave objective lens 21, an intermediate concave lens 22 and a convex eyepiece lens 23 which is positioned at a predetermined distance from the objective lens 21. The aberration of the erect virtual image derived from the objective lens 21 is corrected by the intermediate lens 22, the image from the intermediate lens 22 is magnified by the eyepiece lens 23 and thus the magnified final erect virtual image is formed on the eyepiece lens 23.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 3B, U.S. Pat. No. 4,257,670 disclosed an optical peephole device which is constituted by an optical system composed of three lens assemblies disposed serially along a common optical axis. The first assembly has a doublet constituted by a thick-edged meniscus 31 and a double-concave lens 32, the second assembly has five identical plano-convex lens 33, 34, 35, 36, and 37 that are equidistantly spaced from each other, and the third assembly provides accommodation and is made of a plano-convex lens 38 and an eyepiece 61. In this device, an erect virtual image from the meniscus 31 becomes an inverted real image through the plano-convex lens 33, other plano-convex lenses 34 through 38 correct the aberration and invert again the inverted real image, and thus the final erect real image is formed on the plano-convex lens 38.

However, the former has defects in that as a virtual image is cast on the eyepiece lens, it cannot be made visible on an image formation means such as a ground glass, and therefore the user's eye must be close to the eyepiece lens to view an outside caller or object. Further, because of the small effective diameter of the concave objective lens, the image formed on the eyepiece lens becomes dark due to small amount of incident light. Moreover, when the effective diameter of the concave objective lens is increased in order to brighten the dark image, the caller can view the inside of the door from outside.

The latter device also had disadvantages that though the image derived from the plano-convex lens is erect and real, the luminosity of the formed image is poor due to a large loss of light through the several lenses, no image formation means such as the ground glass can be employed and the user's eye must be close to the eyepiece. Furthermore, the latter device is not suitable for being mounted in a door but suitable for being inserted through a peephole in the thick wall of a chamber because of its large overall length.

In related U.S. Pat. No. 4,892,399 to Ahn, a door viewer projects an image on a ground glass screen. However additional efforts have been made to simplify and reduce the cost of such a door viewer, while still providing a clear cast image on the ground glass screen.

It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a wide angle door viewer which makes it possible to see a bright and clear image even from a position 1-2 meters away from the door viewer without pressing the eye to the eyepiece lens, thereby solving the above-mentioned disadvantages.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a short door viewer whose length is similar to the thickness of an ordinary door, and thus the length that the door viewer protrudes inside the door is short when mounted in the door.

It is another object of the present invention to provide such a short door viewer of simple, low cost construction.

To accomplish the above object, the door viewer according to the present invention comprises two prisms whose hypotenuse surfaces abut horizontally, a front convex lens to invert again the image inverted by the prisms, and a rear convex eyepiece lens all disposed serially along a common optical axis so that an erect real image is cast clearly onto the rear convex eyepiece lens.

The invention will now be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which

FIG. 1 is an exploded perspective view of a door viewer in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a longitudinal sectional view of the door viewer shown in FIG. 1; and

FIGS. 3A and 3B are longitudinal sectional views of conventional optical devices.

Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2 which show a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the hypotenuse surface of two prisms 9 and 9' abut horizontally to increase the light incident area.

The prisms 9 and 9' are inserted in prism holder 8 with their angles supported by a holding member 8', a holding frame 10 and a fixing screw 12. A front convex lens 4 and a rear convex eyepiece lens 4' are inserted in a lens barrel 1 and positioned at predetermined distances corresponding to their focal lengths by means of holding sleeves 5 and 5' which are also inserted in the lens barrel 1. The rear portion of the lens barrel 1 is screw engaged with a holding ring 7.

When the door viewer is mounted in the door 11, the lens barrel 1 is put into the through-hole of the door 11 from the inside, the prism holder 8 is screw engaged with the front portion of the lens barrel 1, and then a mount ring 3 is screw engaged with threads 2 formed on the outer face of the lens barrel 1 to mount the door viewer firmly in the door 11. At this time, a protrusion 13 formed on the upper part of the prism holder 8 is received within a groove 14 on the upper part of the through-hole of the door 11 to prevent the prism holder 8 and the lens barrel 1 from rotating.

The image of an outside caller or object becomes a bright inverted real image through the prisms 9 and 9' and the front convex lens 4 corrects the aberration and inverts again the inverted real image derived from the prisms 9 and 9' to an erect real image as a radius of curvature of a front concave surface of the front convex lens 4 is larger than that of a rear convex surface thereof. While an intermediate plano-convex lens may be used to widen the angle of view and magnify the erect real image from the front convex lens 4, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,892,399, such a lens is optional and is eliminated in the present invention to simplify construction and cost. The image remains clear on the ground glass screen though the viewing angle may be reduced from about 110.degree. to about 90.degree. .

Among lenses of the same effective diameter, the luminosity of a lens increases as its focal length decrease. Therefore, the rear convex lens 4'having a short focal length widens the angle of view and increases the luminosity of the image from the front convex lens 4.

Meanwhile, in this embodiment, the rear planar surface of the rear convex lens 4' is ground finely to be used as an image formation screen and thus the erect real image from the rear convex lens 4' is formed brightly and clearly on its ground surface.

Also, chromatic aberrations can be corrected by marking the radius of curvature of the front concave surface of the front convex lens 4 larger than that of the rear convex surface thereof.

Alternatively, instead of grinding the rear surface of the convex lens 4' , a ground glass can be mounted to abut the rear surface thereof.

In the disclosed embodiment, the best luminosity can be obtained by employing two right-angled prisms 9 and 9' positioning their hypotenuse surface 6 and 6' in contact with each other.

From the foregoing, it will be apparent that the present invention provides advantages in that the image of the caller or object is cast onto the rear ground surface of the eyepiece lens or the ground glass as a bright and clear real image even from a position 1-2 meters away from the door viewer and that the length the door viewer protrudes inside the door is short when mounted in the door.

Whereas the present invention has been described in particular relation to the drawings attached hereto, it should be understood that other and further modifications, apart from those shown or suggested therein, may be made within the spirit and scope of this invention.